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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28062879">Misfits</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishingforatypewriter/pseuds/wishingforatypewriter'>wishingforatypewriter</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: Legend of Korra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Childhood Friends, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:28:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,582</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28062879</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishingforatypewriter/pseuds/wishingforatypewriter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Kuvira is having a terrible day at the Beifong estate until she learns that sometimes misfits fit together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Baatar Jr./Kuvira (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Misfits</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Beifong estate was probably twice the size of the town Kuvira had grown up in. Suyin had told her multiple times not to wander too far, that she’d get lost if she did. But she figured being lost would get her into a lot less trouble than what would have happened if she had stayed in the studio.</p><p>
  <em> When I become the lady of Zaofu, there won’t be any flat-footed peasants in my dance troupe.  </em>
</p><p>Kuvira could still feel the tiny bits of earth in Peony Park’s silver necklace humming to her fingertips. It wouldn’t have taken much effort at all to make the metal close in around her throat and strangle her; in fact, it was incredibly difficult not to. The element was always so ready to obey her commands that even wishing too hard would have caused something terrible. </p><p>So she had bolted out as soon as Su’s back was turned, down one flight of stairs and then another, putting deep dents in the banisters whenever she thought about the smug heiress of the second richest family in Zaofu and all her snooty friends. She had taken a left through one corridor and then a right through another before she fully realized she had no idea where she was going. </p><p>There were no colored glass windows in this part of the house. The halls were poorly lit, and the floors were made of plain concrete. The only two people Kuvira saw—a man going in one direction with a basket of kale and a woman coming from another with a tray of fragrant tea—had skirted past her before she could ask for directions. She had begun to resign herself to the idea that she’d probably die down here—and that no one would miss her if she did—when she saw a bright light pouring out from an open door. </p><p>She peeked in the doorway and saw Suyin’s oldest son pondering over a few sheets of graph paper and something that looked like the Zaofu rail line in miniature. Kuvira didn’t really know anything about him, besides the fact that he was a nonbender and that he had been named after Su’s husband. He wasn’t around much, only appearing at meals and formal events, and saying very little even when he was present. He usually had a book with him and opened it when conversations started, which Kuvira thought was a very effective way of making people leave you alone. Sometime in the months since she’d arrived, he had turned ten and disappeared halfway through his own birthday feast. Su hadn’t seemed to notice, but the feast seemed to be more about her first decade of motherhood, anyway. </p><p>All of Kuvira’s good sense told her that this person who avoided his own family like the septapox probably didn’t want to be bothered, but curiosity prompted her to step fully into the room. Her presence seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the older boy, who just kept fiddling with his models and adding to his diagrams. </p><p>After watching for another minute or two, she couldn’t help herself. “What are you doing, Baatar?” </p><p>Su’s son started at the sound of her voice, and the mechanical pencil he’d been scribbling with scratched a sharp, errant line on the page. When he looked up at her, his eyes were as wide as his wire-rimmed glasses, which themselves were roughly the size of dinner plates. </p><p>Kuvira bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at the expression, but it still didn’t work. She chuckled behind her hand and watched as a deep flush inched up his neck. “I’m sorry,” she said after she’d composed herself. “But seriously, what is all this?”</p><p>Baatar seemed poised to ask her a host of questions—probably about what she was doing there—but somehow seemed to discern that he’d get nowhere without answering hers first. Smart boy; she’d give him that. </p><p>“It’s mostly a thought experiment.” He adjusted his glasses absently and then handed her one of his sheets of paper. It was a rough map of the Earth Kingdom with numbers written next to all the major cities and towns. “Right now, it takes weeks to travel from one end of the Earth Kingdom to the other without an airship, but a high-speed rail line between Omashu and Ba Sing Se could cut that time down to something like two days.”</p><p>Kuvira crossed her arms and raised an incredulous eyebrow. She may not have been born in Zaofu, but she wasn’t that stupid. “Two days?” </p><p>“I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’ve worked the math out, and assuming the trains can reach an average speed of at least 160 miles per hour, they should be able to cross the distance between the two cities in under forty-eight hours.”</p><p>“Hmm.” Kuvira glanced at the pages of figures he’d produced , and decided to take his word on the mathematics of it. She focused on the map instead. “Exactly who do you think is laying train tracks in the middle of the desert?”</p><p>He looked puzzled, as though the idea of an actual workforce had never come up in his thought experiment. Maybe it hadn’t. “A force of metalbenders should be able to accomplish it quite easily.”</p><p>And then Kuvira was laughing at him for the second time in five minutes. It was probably more than she had laughed since her father had left her on the Beifongs’ doorstep. “Metalbenders don’t work on railroads,” she explained. “Zaofu is an exception, but the skill is still pretty rare. You’d be lucky if you could find regular earthbenders who’d do it.”</p><p>He seemed to consider what she said for a moment, and then made another note in the margins of one of his diagrams. “You’re right. The workforce question does pose a new problem,” he said, and then looked up at her again. “What would you—wait. How did you get down here, anyway? I thought you were in that dance class with my mom.” </p><p>“I am.” Kuvira felt her shoulders tense and her jaw tighten as she recalled the events that had propelled her down into the entrails of the estate—the cutting eyes and sneaky shoves and nasty little comments. Her hands balled up into fists. “But if I had stayed in there another minute, Peony Park would be in the hospital.” </p><p>Kuvira felt something release in her then—familiar and gratifying—and when she looked down, Baatar’s 3D model had been crumpled into a sad ball. Her hands started shaking when she saw what she had done. </p><p>“I...I didn’t...I mean, I…” Her words faded and the walls started closing in around her, her breathing coming faster and faster as the basement transformed into her parents’ living room. It wasn’t supposed to be like this anymore. She was supposed to be able to control it now. </p><p>A jagged crack ran its way through the concrete floor in front of her. She had been trying to stop it, straining to reverse the damage she had done, when she felt a pair of hands lightly gripping her shoulders. </p><p>“Kuvira, look at me,” Baatar said. “It’s okay. Just try to breathe.”</p><p>She met his eyes then, gray-green and devoid of the fear and loathing that always came when she lost control. If anything, he seemed worried about her. “But I ruined your—”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter.”</p><p>“But—”</p><p>“No, it really doesn’t matter." He took her hands and slowly the shaking abated. “You didn’t mean to do it, and I can build a better one in an hour. Probably less, now that I’ve done it once already. There’s really no reason to be upset, so please don’t cry.”</p><p>“I wasn’t going to cry!” she snapped, even against the telltale tightness at the back of her throat. She glanced up at the ceiling, hoping Kyoshi and Yangchen would give her the strength to not start crying in front of this boy in the middle of this random basement.</p><p>She took a few deep breaths and tried to focus her mind the way Su had taught her. Pulling away from Baatar, she took an earthbending stance and then closed up the hole in the ground. Then, she turned her attention towards the model. With a little patience, she was able to expand it back to a somewhat lopsided version of its former self, but some of the finer features of it were beyond repair. </p><p>“Sorry. That’s the best I can do,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll go, before I ruin something else.” </p><p>“You don’t have to go,” Baatar rushed to say. “I mean you can if you want to, obviously, but…”</p><p>“But what?” Kuvira prompted. </p><p>“Whenever the girls in the dance studio or Opal or whoever is getting on your nerves, you can come down here—as long as you don’t tell the twins or Huan where this is.”</p><p>Kuvira smiled a little despite herself. “Is that why you set up shop all the way down here? To avoid your siblings?”</p><p>“And my dad,” he said. “Do you want an ice pop, by the way?”</p><p>Kuvira blinked a few times. “You have a freezer down here?”</p><p>“Built it out of spare parts,” he explained as he went over to the small invention. “Moon peach flavor or lychee?”</p><p>“Lychee.” Kuvira bent herself a chair out of the concrete flooring and plopped down on it. She could definitely get used to this.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading everyone! This is loosely based off of some headcanons I posted on Tumblr about how Kuvira ended up  with the Beifongs https://wishingforatypewriter.tumblr.com/post/637082158907949056/kuvira-backstory-headcanon-because-rote-did-not</p></blockquote></div></div>
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